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Saturday, December 30, 2017

OK, I have to warn you from the beginning. This is a “true story”. Not only true, but also a pride, prejudice, pain, gain, failure, and finally getting the grips kind of story. Got your attention? Cool. Listen up. I will give you a secret on how “not to raise” your trilingual child, so that you can probably skip the “failure part” from your own story.

Yes, finally after a long battle over “theory and practice”; I can say that I am a proud mother of a trilingual. Over the 4 years, this got me on the edge of mental failure – especially trying to find a “method” that fits our family, trying to keep that method within the family, and trying to “ignore” the super parents around who kept blab blab blab’ing on “how natural it is in their family”, “how fast the kids absorb 3,4,5,6,7 languages (no *hitting, I met an African mama who kept all 7 languages at home!) etc.

Ok, now a flashback on who I am. I am a psychologist.Not only a random one (unfortunately), I am a “shrink” and a “neuropsychologist”. Yeah baby. I thought I read it all, I could just use my knowledge and get through this business of raising a trilingual. Easy-peasy. Not really. That is the first piece of information I will give now: “Do not read too much, especially after the child is born”. Why? Because you will get lost in theory and surprised how different it is in reality. Skip that part. Google “OPOL technique” and see how you lost from the beginning: “One Parent, One language, Never mix” simply does not work with more than 2 languages and only 1 parent. Gosh its sooo easy to raise a bilingual, right? (Sorry guys, you do a great job, just pure jealousy here).

The problem with theory is; you tend to forget the basic cliche: “every child is different”. Yes, there are supposed to be some super talented kids around who absorb languages like “you stuff yourself with chocolate in bathroom when your 2-year old is having a meltdown in her room”, but most children are not talented that way.

My child was an exception of theory. She was raised 3-lingual until age 1,5. Me speaking Turkish, daddy speaking German with her and we speak English when we all were together. The first year was easy since there were no expectations of her talking back. The second year, I realized she was far beyond her developmental stage. First time mothering plus being a neuropsychologist hit me hard, ladies and gents, and I started comparing and contrasting my kid. Second advice: Do not do it. Why? It only makes you miserable. I got panicked. She was not gonna talk, EVER.

So what did I do? I went to her pediatrician who was obviously an “expert” in speech development (Nooooot!) who told me “yeah, it’s delaying, not normal” (some doctors really fail in human psychology, right?). So I thought, “Oh no, all the old and wise ladies who stopped me on bus-stops were right! (We call them Oma-Police here, they are those grannies who are always worried about your child being outside without a hat). The brain on development is having hard time, lets make things a bit easier for poor child” and whoooop I dropped the 3rd language. I did! Yes.

And she talked.

Of course.

She talked, but not because I dropped the 3rd language, because it was her personal developmental point of starting to talk. Gosh, she talked and talked... and talked. But she talked nonsense! It was impossible to understand her “3-languages in same sentence” talk unless you can speak all those languages. The books said “it’s a phase, keep on answering her in your own language, she will know soon whom to talk with which language”. But when? I was devastated.. What was I doing wrong that she was just not getting this trilingualism?!

Let me tell you. I was believing theory and other mothers too much! They all told me “yes, sure, ours is trilingual and it’s just so natural and easy” and I believed. I thought I was the only mother who sucked at this trilingualism business and my child was the only one who didn’t get it. But in reality, people just tell you what they believe, not the “brutal” reality. They usually say “sure, she is trilingual” when the child understands all those languages, yet can not speak them properly. Or when she mixes, jams, plays around. Or even when her nanny speaks a language, they assume the child is automatically trilingual! I even met a mother who believed she was raising a trilingual because she was watching TV in language X for 1 hour every day!!! And me, I only accept a child is trilingual when that child speaks ALL three languages without mixing, forming grammatically correct sentences with rich vocabulary. In this sense, are there any trilingual children (at least before Age 3-4) at all???? My answer: No. Never seen one.

So relax! Don’t be a dick head psychologist who questions everything until perfectionism.. Relax..

Until age 3, she lived all these VERY NORMAL phases of more than one mother language acquisition: she mixed, she developed her own rules, she tried using grammar of one with vocabulary of other, she formed logically correct yet linguistically super wrong sentences (this phase was really so much fun). Not so much fun but still normal phases such as stuttering, avoiding one or both or any languages for a long period of time (selective mutism) and being socially rejected due to lack of community language skills etc. Also, been there, done that. Of course when you are living it, it’s not fun. But they all pass eventually, just like all those growth spurts of babyhood or terrible twos pass. And somewhere between age 3 to 4, you realize that you have a child who can speak the community language as good as her peers PLUS at least one language better than them - to be honest, you may end up with a child who can speak at least one language better than you or your husband, too. ☺ Welcome to our boat, fellow parents of multicultural children.

Now let’s turn back to our “poor old 3rd language”, which I radically decided to drop for a while, at age 1,5, panicking my toddler will not speak any language at all. You know what, it showed up by itself at age 3,5! Without any effort, without any intention, to my surprise one day, she started speaking it with her grannies.. Just like that! I was shocked, speechless.. She was there, all by herself, cracking the codes of her looooong forgotten 3rd language! In only 1 month, where we had a long summer holiday with her grannies, she started showing interest in speaking Turkish. After a full month, she was speaking it! – Well, not perfect, but good enough to be able to play with children speaking only Turkish. Now, finally, at age four, she is “trilingual”. Isn’t it a success story? Hell, yeah!

But, to be honest, it was damn hard for us. We failed, got up, tried again, failed again, got up, tried again, failed again. Learned a lot on process. And its another story or multiple stories, I would love to share with you.. Common mistakes, common misunderstandings, common failures, common “I can not do it anymore on the loooong road of “creating a trilingual child”. If I dare to say “trilingual” at all.. I see our family as “on the road of trilingualism” still, because for me a true trilingual is someone who can speak all three languages fluently, in right context, without any (or minimal) mistakes. And well.. we have a looooong way reaching there. But, come on people, be honest! Who does not?! So, why not sharing our experiences, why not saving each other doing same mistakes, why not giving a hand to each other on this common road? Good idea? Then come up, join up!

To be continued.. ☺

Ceren Schubert - Contributing writer from Munich, Germany. She holds double Masters degrees in Developmental Psychology and Clinical Neuropsychology, who choose to give a break on her PhD career to be SAHM of two trilingual (to be) children. When she is not full time parenting; she is also an enthusiastic traveller off the beaten tracks, a passionate blogger, and enjoys being around open minded, colorful and multi cultural people. She loves dogs a bit more than cats, malaga a bit more than vanilla ice cream, coffee a bit more than sleeping, and summer a lot more than winter. She also loves walking very long distances when she needs to think and sometimes (often) gets lost doing that.. Her latest “project” is learning Qigong, which she started just recently and loved a great deal! Oh and, she dreams of writing a book one day.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

When Italians start decorating for Christmas:

Traditionally Italians start decorating for Christmas in the beginning of December, on the day of the Immaculate Conception, which falls on December 8. However, lately many Italians started putting out Christmas decorations and lights as early as at the end of November.

1. Italian Christmas Decorations - Church

Church has an important part in Italian culture. Every single one is decorated and has a nativity scene display, that is called Presepe. You can find Presepe both inside and outside the church. Sometimes in a building in the near proximity.

2. Italian Christmas Decorations - Nativity Scenes or Presepe

Children and adults are passionate about building nativity scenes, that in Italian called Presepe.
Some Presepe are even animated! There are also Live Nativity Scenes with real animals and people dressed in costumes.

3. Italian Christmas Decorations - Windows

Italians are creative decorators and decorate for Christmas their house windows and balconies.

4. Italian Christmas Decorations - Doors and Entrances

There is almost no single door left without a decoration! Red color bows and Christmas wreaths are used often this year.

5. Italian Christmas Decorations - Storefronts

Stores beautiful Christmas decorations are another way to attract more customers during the winter holiday season. Christmas trees, lights and ornaments are everywhere, even on small town streets!

Interested to learn more about Italian Christmas Traditions?
How is Christmas celebrated in Italy?
Who brings Christmas presents in Italy and when?
What is a typical Italian Christmas meal?
And learn about 13 Italian Traditional Christmas desserts? - Then read Italian Christmas Traditions!
Have you already got a calendar/planner for 2018? Check out this coloring calendar monthly planner that I created together with very talented Maria Soldatova.

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Welcome to our fifth annual Christmas in Different Lands series! This year each participating blogger will focus on a different country, sharing a traditional dish and more about Christmas in that country. For even more glimpses of global Christmas celebrations, see our series from previous years (2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016) plus follow our Christmas board on Pinterest!

Friday, November 24, 2017

Have you thought about getting a calendar/planner to track your child's development? This year my 8 years old son asked me many questions for his school project. I was happy I made notes in a calendar and kept it all these years! So I was able to tell him when exactly he said his first word, when exactly he started walking ...

In a collaboration with an illustrator Maria Soldatova I created a 2018 Coloring Calendar / Monthly Planner that not only can help you stay organized, but also keeps you entertained!

Monday, July 31, 2017

How Do You Choose Which Language To Speak To Your Child When Both Parents Are Trilingual (In The Same 3 Languages)?

My Personal Story About Raising Trilingual Children

by Suzan Alakas

No, no, no! Ei! Yok! YOK!

Younger Daughter stamps her feet, crosses her arms and pushes out lower lip in a pouty defiance. She refuses to get in the car and sit in her car seat. Sigh. Here she goes again. It’s not enough for my 2 year old to be stubborn and object in one language... she has to go on a rant in 3 languages. But even though it’s completely frustrating in the moment (we are going to be LATE if she doesn’t get in and sit down), inside I’m proud of her language ability at such a young age.

Allow me to translate: Yok (Tatar) = No (English) = Ei (Finnish)

Did you guess that she is saying: No, no, no! No! No! NO!

How my husband and I became trilingual in the same 3 languages:

Hello! I’m Suzan Alakas. My first language was Tatar, an old Turkic language, spoken to me by both parents. We spoke Tatar at home, with my grandparents, and extended family/community.

I was born in Japan, and learned a little Japanese, but attended American pre-school and learned English at a young age. We moved to the US when I was 7 (unfortunately, most of my Japanese was forgotten). English quickly became the dominant language in my life, and still is to this day.

About 20 years ago I met my future husband, at a wedding, in California. He was visiting from Finland. He was also raised speaking Tatar at home, and learned Finnish growing up in Finland. Plus, like most Finns, he had a pretty high competency in English since he started studying it in 3rd grade.

After that wedding, we went our separate ways, but kept in touch, long distance. We primarily communicated in English, because we felt limited by our Tatar vocabulary. I also started learning Finnish with songs, reading the dictionary (yes, I’m a language nerd!!) and eventually studying Finnish in college. He would send a portion of his emails to me in Finnish, and I would sit and translate them, asking him questions about the words and expressions I couldn’t find in the dictionary. (This was before Google Translate existed.) As our relationship grew stronger, and we visited each others’ home countries more often; my Finnish improved, as did his English.

By the time we got married, settled in California, and had our Older Daughter, we were both highly proficient in Tatar, English and Finnish.

Suzan Alakas with her two daughters

In what language environment will we raise our child? Our thought process.

We talked about this A LOT. We planned, discussed different scenarios, and reached a mutual agreement.

One Parent, One Language (OPOL) – seemed like a good approach from the beginning.

Both speaking the same language (Minority Language at Home, ML@H) – Leaned towards Tatar, considered Finnish.

Speaking a language based on the day of the week (Time and Place strategy, T&P) – We quickly ruled out because it didn’t feel natural. We had tried this with just the two of us and it never caught on.

Living in the US, we felt our daughter would pick up English from her environment. So neither of us would be speaking that to her. That left Finnish and Tatar.

Was Finnish necessary since only 5 million people in the world speak it, and pretty much only in Finland?

Was Tatar necessary since it’s only spoken in Tatarstan, and quickly being replaced by Russian? Would we even be good enough to speak it to her, to teach it to her?

We decided that any language we can teach our child would be a benefit, and there were many reasons why we decided to include all 3 in her upbringing.

Tatar: speaking to grandparents and small Tatar community, retaining link to culture, food, songs in that language.

Finnish: keeping opportunities open for travel/business in Finland, possible move in Finland in the future.

Benefit of knowing more than 1 language in general: becoming more culturally sensitive, increasing exposure to sounds/tones/grammar of other languages, making it easier to learn a foreign language later.

Lots of encouraging research on this, like:

“Most researchers agree that multilinguals have special characteristics which are different from those of monolinguals or even bilinguals. Multilingual speakers use languages as a resource in communication and they use the various languages in different ways according to their communicative needs and their interlocutors. Monolingual speakers use one language for every situation and have fewer resources available.”(Ruiz de Zarobe, 2015)

After we decided all 3 languages would be present in our child’s life, the decision became quite simple. We adopted the OPOL (One Parent, One Language) approach. Since I am not a native speaker of Finnish, I would speak Tatar and my husband would speak Finnish.

Learning to make traditional Tatar food

In theory and in practice

I was already talking and singing to my tummy in Tatar before my Older Daughter was born, so when she arrived it felt natural. It wasn’t easy though – I hadn’t spoken Tatar day in and day out since I was 3 years old. I could only hold a middle school level conversation, mostly limited by my vocabulary. My grammar was rusty too. I could read Tatar written in Latin letters, but not in the widely used Cyrillic alphabet. I had 3 dictionaries nearby and started to read the Tatar children’s picture dictionary daily with my daughter, just as much for my own sake as for hers. It felt wonderful learning more of my mother tongue and passing it on to my daughter.

During the first few weeks, my husband spoke to my daughter in Tatar. When I gently reminded him that he was the Finnish speaker, he agreed that he would switch, but kept forgetting because it felt more natural to speak to her in Tatar. Then something clicked, and he did switch to Finnish.

By about 1 year, my daughter understood Tatar and Finnish very well, and was speaking lots of Tatar. She also knew some English phrases and words from playing with other children, listening to mom and dad, and listening to lots of songs in English. She was an early speaker and said her first string of 4 words, “happy birthday to you” at 12 months.

Then at about 18 months in, we seriously started talking about moving to Finland. At this point, my husband switched back to speaking Tatar. Because my husband knew we would eventually be moving to Finland and our daughter would learn Finnish there, he decided to switch back to Tatar full time.

We supplemented Finnish by playing more Finnish songs and showing some Finnish TV programs via internet.

At first I was disappointed that we were abandoning OPOL, but I didn’t push it because I knew my husband felt isolated speaking to Older Daughter in Finnish when no one else in our Tatar or Finnish circles could understand them. I felt that the most important thing was that he build a strong, loving relationship with her, and if he felt that Tatar was the language to do that in, then that was his choice. We didn’t notice any confusion from our daughter as Finnish decreased and we switched to the ML@H (minority language at home) model. Fortunately for us, she was still quite young, her father’s transition was to her dominant language and she spent most of the time with me at home speaking Tatar anyway.

And then we moved! Äk! Now what?

While pregnant with my 2nd daughter, we decided to move to Finland.

Now what to do with the languages? Should one of us start speaking to her in English?

I didn’t want to switch out of the mother tongue. I was the primary caretaker and didn’t want to abruptly change from Tatar to English. Our daughter would have probably been ok with it, since my husband and Tatar community speak Tatar, but we decided to both keep speaking to her in Tatar, and add more English to her life - since that was going to be the new minority language.

How we increased exposure to the non-mother tongue, minority language (English)

The biggest factor was increasing her exposure to children’s shows in English. We were VERY selective with how often and what she could watch. At first, we only found one show we were comfortable with: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. Slowly, we added more.

We played lots of music – from the Beatles to School House Rock, plus children’s songs that I wrote myself in English.

We visited the US every year, and grandparents visited us often. While they spoke mostly in Tatar, they did use lots of English too.

My husband and I continued to speak English to each other at home.

Increasing language exposure with songs

How Older Daughter Adjusted

When we moved to Finland, Older Daughter was about 3 years old – she was a solid speaker of Tatar, very good English speaker, and knew just a few Finnish words. We quickly enrolled her in a Finnish music group and dance classes, took her to story time every week at the library, and made sure she was out and about hearing Finnish at the park or grocery store during the week. Simultaneously, the increased exposure to English was working.

One day she says to me, in English: I need to elevate my leg. It hurts.

Me, in Tatar: What happened? And did you say, “elevate”? Where did you learn that word?

She replies, in Tatar: Daniel Tiger hurt his leg and went to see the doctor, and she said to “elevate” it.

Wow.

So since Older Daughter had such a strong English ability by age 4, we decided to shift her focus to Finnish, and enrolled her in a Finnish pre-school for 5 hours per week. Within weeks she was using Finnish words, and just a few months in, she was understanding and replying with basic sentences. We also added more Finnish children’s programming, and my husband started to read books to her in Finnish.

Yes, she would learn Finnish in school, but since we had a few years before she started school, we wanted to give her a chance to be proficient before she got there. Our hope is that by the time she starts school, she knows Finnish well enough to focus on the content and school experience, rather than on learning the language.

My Younger Daughter’s language journey

We lived in the US until Younger Daughter was about 1 year old. My husband, Older Daughter and I all spoke to her in Tatar, and she had very little exposure to English and Finnish.

After moving to Finland and upping Older Daughter’s English shows and songs, my Younger Daughter got much more exposure to English at a younger age than her sister. While she was much slower to speak compared to her sister, now at 2 years old, her English ability is already almost at the same level as her Tatar.

How did this happen? When I looked a little closer, I realized that her Tatar and English exposure are about 50/50:

Less Tatar

She has less 1 on 1 time with me, as there are 2 children now vying for attention

Less focused Tatar dictionary reading/studying because I already learned lots of new words with Older Daughter o

More English

Interestingly, the girls speak English to each other. Big sister spends the most 1 on 1 time with little sister and English is older sister’s language of choice

Their favorite shows are in English

Mom and dad have more time together at home in Finland vs US, so she hears us speaking more, in English

I write children’s songs in English, sing these songs at home, perform these songs at local concerts

I teach English to other children and hold story time in English at the local library. My girls often attend.

I have no worries about Younger Daughter’s ability to speak Tatar and English, so now that she is 2, she will be starting a Finnish music playgroup in the fall. We intend to start her in the Finnish pre-school when she turns 3.

A colorful blending of languages - Instances of Code Switching inside and outside the home

What is code switching (CS)? It’s when you mix languages during a conversation.

While I try to consistently speak Tatar to my girls, I am ok with some code-switching going on. To me, it’s more natural to choose a word in another language that we mutually understand, than to stop the conversation, try to explain it or look it up. I grew up in code-switching environment, and so did my husband, and I am happy with how our language abilities turned out. Some people look down upon code switching, though the research is mostly favorable.

“Parents in particular are concerned that CS may confuse children as they develop their knowledge and skills in different languages. However, recent research in bilingual and multilingual education has provided evidence that CS can not only be used as an effective pedagogical strategy for teaching and learning (Canagarajah 2011) but also should be seen as a sign of linguistic creativity and criticality (Li 2011).” (Dewaele/Wei, 2013)

“CS has both educational benefits and drawbacks. Positively, it increases learner participation and lesson comprehension. Negatively, it does not contribute to developing the learners’ proficiency and confidence in speaking…” (Mokgwathi/Webb, 2013)

“Code-switching induced by a particular emotional state and by a lack of specific vocabulary in a target language appeared to relate to increase in innovative capacity.” (Kharkhurin/Wei, 2014)

So when do we use code-switching?

Outside the home: Usually when my girls speak to me in English at home, I repeat their question or statement in Tatar and then respond in Tatar.But sometimes when we are outside the home and they speak to me in English, I respond in English. English is definitely more prestigious than Tatar, and I teach English here in the community, so it feels natural to incorporate some English when we are around a larger group of people.

Gaps in vocabulary: When I don’t know a word in Tatar, I try to explain it the best I can in Tatar, and then say it in English. I honestly explain to the girls that I don’t know the Tatar word, and that the word I’m using is the English name of the word. Then we attempt to find the Tatar word in one of our dictionaries, or by asking an older member of the community.
Sometimes I make up Tatar words that are logical translations. For example, when I didn’t know the Tatar word for vein, I explained it in Tatar as “blood roads”. When the actual translation turned out to be the English equivalent of “roots”, we all learned a new word, and made the switch.

However, sometimes I do not follow through with finding out the Tatar word, or there is no Tatar word equivalent, so the English word gets incorporated into our everyday vocabulary.

Emotions/complex subjects: It is still hard for me to express deep emotions and have complex discussions in Tatar. Now that Older Daughter is 4, our conversations are less superficial and much more technical (Why do the leaves fall from the trees in the fall, etc?). I do my best to explain in Tatar, and then supplement in English when needed.

Written language: Another challenge is reading and writing: I am teaching my girls the English alphabet because I don’t know Cyrillic, and they will learn the Finnish alphabet in school.

What I have learned creating our language environment, in a nutshell

It was important to take the time to talk about and work through scenarios of what language to speak to our children.

While very common, OPOL is not the only option or best option for everyone.

It’s ok to be flexible. Our initial choice doesn’t feel right in practice, and we needed to make a switch. Obviously, the earlier, the better.

I’m grateful that I have options of which language to speak to my children. Most people don’t.

I will continue to incorporate all the languages I know, at whatever level, to my children - via books or shows, play groups, or songs. You never know which language might be valuable to your child in the future, and at the very least it will help them be more culturally aware, expose them to other languages, and help them learn other languages in the future.

How did you decide on your family’s language arrangement? Please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear how you made the decision.

Suzan Alakas is a Mom, Linguist, Singer/Songwriter, and Founder of www.gozango.net . She created a system to help children learn English via songs, and stop struggling to learn English; to make it fun, and faster than other methods; to focus on the key words and phrases that native speakers use all the time; to better remember what was learned; and to help reduce heavy/unclear accents.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

If you’d like to introduce your child to the Russian art, this is a good book to start with:
Azbuka Russkoj Zhivopisi ( “Азбука Русской Живописи” ) by L. Zhukova.
I love art, but I have to admit that I have no deep knowledge of Russian painters. This book was exactly what I was looking for to introduce my raised-abroad Russian speaking trilingual kids to Russian art and artists . It is called “Азбука Русской Живописи” which means “The ABC of Russian Paintings”. It has a chart that organizes painters by genres and indicates when they lived. Each page spread is dedicated to one painter: Ivan Aivazovsky, Karl Bryullov, Viktor Vasnetsov, Vasily Vereshchagin , Vrubel,Arkhip Kuindzhi - too numerous to mentioned everyone!

I like that for each painter there is a portrait or, in some cases, an autoportrait with a short story about painter's life and genre he was focusing on.

Monday, June 19, 2017

I am not sure who loves these poems more whether my kids or myself. Since the book appeared on our bookshelf, it happened sometime back in 2014, we read it again and again. The fun word play by Renata Muha and beautiful illustrations by Evgeniy Antonenkov keep us entertained.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Speech delay is often connected to /“blamed” on a child's gender or on the quantity of languages a child is exposed to. It is true that trilingual children definitely face more challenges than bilingual children do and bilingual children face more challenges than monolingual kids do. But be realistic. If you feel that you put a lot of efforts in your bilingual child’s language development and the results are not proportional to your input, it is time to search for doctor’s help.

This life story from Priscila Kohler will illustrate one of the possible causes of speech delay in children and I hope it will help many of you to act promptly to avoid possible complications.

I am Brazilian, and I am married to a Norwegian guy. We live in Norway and communicate in English between ourselves. When our son Martin was born, we decide to raise him trilingual. I only spoke Portuguese, my husband English, and Norwegian he would have to learn from the school.

I have two close friends whom had their children at the same time as me. So it was natural for me, a first time mom, to “compare” the development of the kids. By the time their children were 2 years old and talking, Martin was not.

And two main things kept us from seeking proper help, let’s say.

First, he was the only one being raised in a trilingual environment. So, people would say that many children would delay their speaking because of that, especially boys.

Second, his personality. He was always a child that could deep concentrate in some activity, not paying attention to anything else, and he is really stubborn.

While my friends kids were doing some “tricks” on command, like: clap your hands, put the toy in the basket, etc, Martin never did. And we, me and my husband, never suspected that he could not hear what we told him, but rather, he just chose not to do it.

Then the pedagogue from the nursery school showed some concern, due to communication with him. A psychologist is called in to observe him at the the nursery school, and finds nothing wrong with him. Finally, we had a “2nd year control” at the health station, and then, only then, the nurse suspects that he might not be hearing well. We get an appointment with an Ear-nose-and-throat doctor, and within 2 minutes of consultation, the doctor says that Martin has hearing problem. In fact he´s got some liquid stuck in his inner ear (that is really common among children that have a lot of ear infections, for example, but as far as we knew, Martin only had it one time at 5 months of age…).

Martin was scheduled an operation to drain the liquid out. It’s a simple surgery , but requires complete anesthesia. The same day we came home from the hospital, and turn on the TV, Martin made a face, and started pointing at the TV, like wow, THAT is how it sounds … It broke my heart.

After that, he made a HUGE improvement. Really quick as well. I do feel guilty sometimes for not having thought of that earlier. But no one never suspected that his delay in speech was due to bad ears. Only if I knew that those things are related, I would have done something before.

BE AWARE! Your child can have fluid in the middle ear (otitis media) without you noticing it!As it can cause absolutely NO PAIN and your child will not complain.